Snowball Night: Rainbow Sherbet

Karen at Sew Many Ways is hosting a fun, low pressure quilt-along. She's suggested that we all work on snowball quilts together one night a week, because quilting with friends is always fun! Click on her cute button to see all of her posts about snowball quilts. She's offered lots of inspiration, plus different cutting sizes for snowballs, small, medium and large.




I announced that I'd given in to peer pressure decided to join the quilt along two weeks ago. I decided to make this a stash quilt and got my fabrics pulled. But real life got in the way and I didn't get anything more done than that. So when my first Tuesday update day rolled around I decided not to post an update because a stack of stash fabric doesn't look like a very serious attempt at joining a quilt-along.

Since I missed my first week's update, I decided that I'd better get busy cutting. Not too far into it, my snowball quilt . . . well . . . snowballed. It is now going to be two quilts. You know my motto. Go big or go home! My youngest sister is getting married at the end of July. And since we're on a bit of a tight budget right now (Mr. Bug, whose position at his job was recently cut, is starting his own business), I decided that hopefully all the love and time I put into a throw quilt for my sister would make up for money not spent.

You're probably scratching your head and wondering why I had to make two quilts instead of just making one and giving it to my sister. Well, just look at this:

Could you give all that rainbow-y goodness away? I didn't think so, and neither could I. I tried to part ways with it mentally, but since it started out as a quilt for me us to have around the house, I'd grown attached to it and couldn't bear to part with it. The only solution was to make a second quilt. I think that I will call these quilts Rainbow Sherbet: Double Dipping.

I'm using 6" (finished) blocks, a 1" (finished) sashing with little tiny cornerstone blocks in the rainbow of colors, and a 2" x 5" stacked coin border (I think that's what you call it), again in the rainbow of colors. The snowball corners and sashing is a pretty white on off-white floral vine I procured from the local JoAnn's at 50% off. I decided to use it for the back and binding as well since I got it for $2 a yard (wohoo! Have I mentioned that I love to get a great deal?!) I'm going for my own version of this. I'm going to use a 6 x 8 block layout, so the finished size will be roughly 53" x 67", a nice throw size perfect for cuddling up under to watch TV or read a book.

I pulled 21 colors from my stash; four of the prints are from JoAnn's (I know some people only buy at quilt shops, but I'm not one of those people), six are Modas (I L♥VE Moda!) and three of the six Modas are by Sandy Gervais (I L♥VE Sandy Gervais even more), nine of the prints are left over from aprons and there is even one print from the $2 table at Wal-Mart (they don't have that anymore and if they did, I don't think I'd shop that anymore -- I do have some sense of quilting propriety). One fat quarter (or quarter-yard cut) of each of the colors was enough to get all the pieces I needed for two quilts. I haven't bought batting yet, but the total (additional) out-of-pocket cost for both quilts so far is $17.95. Number of hours spent cutting: I'm totally not telling!